That the President’s American Jobs Act failed in the Senate on Tuesday night offers some weight to the claim that Republicans are using the dismal economy to their advantage. “I think there really is a real political incentive for them to drag their feet as much as possible, while still seeming as if they care,” Surowiecki explains.

Cassidy, who picked apart Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan today, says that the tax-cutting elements of the plan poise Cain to become “George Bush squared.” As Surowiecki explains, less money for a smaller federal government is “for some Republicans a feature, not a bug.”